Crossroads School Jazz 'A' Band

Winner of the High School Combo Division at the 2017 Next Generation Jazz Festival

Luca Mendoza, 18, is a classical and jazz pianist and composer. Luca is the 2016 National YoungArts Foundation Finalist for Jazz Piano, a 2015/2016 YoungArts Merit Winner for Jazz Composition, and a LA Music Center Spotlight Grand Prize Finalist.

As an Los Angeles Philharmonic Composer Fellow, he has participated in workshops with top-notch composers and individual talks with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. With the program, his compositions have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Calder Quartet and the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet, as well as members of the Los Angeles Master Chorale and ICE.

A two-time member of the Monterey Next Generation Jazz Orchestra, he has received two Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival Outstanding Solo Awards as well as two Gerald Wilson Awards for composition.

He has received seven DownBeat Magazine Student Music Awards (in combo composition, large ensemble composition, and combo performance), a 2016 Herb Alpert ASCAP award, and was a finalist in the 2017 Jazz Education Network Composer Showcase. He has also been accepted into the 2017 NARAS Grammy Band, the 2014 and 2015 Brubeck Institute Summer Jazz Colonies, and the 2015 Vail Jazz Workshop.

Luca will be majoring in Classical Composition at the University of Southern California in the fall.

Bassist Anna Abondolo, 16, is a senior at Crossroads School for the Arts and Sciences. She plays in the A-Band coached by Evan Avery and participates in the Colburn School jazz program under the direction of Lee Secard. Anna studies bass with John Clayton. In 2017, Anna received an Outstanding Soloist Award from the Monterey Next Generation Jazz Festival Competition as well as placing first in the high school combo division. At Stanford Jazz, she was awarded the Duke Ellington Award for Outstanding Musicianship. Anna received an honorable mention in the 2017 Young Arts and was a 2017 finalist in the Spotlight Awards which resulted in her Disney Hall debut. She was also invited to perform with the Tom Kubis band as their featured student performer. This past summer, Anna was accepted into the Jazz Workshop under the direction of Terri Lyne Carrington and Rick DiMuzio at Berklee College of Music.